Rod Dreher is back. Let joy be unconfined, &c.

So says Rod Dreher, after a year of blog sabbatical. Your mileage may vary.

As the late, great Justin Wilson would say, “How y’all are?” Things have been pretty good by me this past year, all things considered. A short explanation for where I’ve been is in order. Basically, the online magazine I was hired to blog for and to help edit shut down after a short run. I was unable to blog elsewhere, under the rules of the John Templeton Foundation, where I worked until just recently. The Templeton Foundation is a truly remarkable place, and I loved the people and the ideas I got to work with there. But in the end, I’m a writer, and I wanted to return to what makes me happy and gives meaning to my life. Plus, our country is in crisis, and it’s getting worse. I want to participate in the debate and discussion in the public square, especially because the things that I believe in and care about the most are under increased threat. Mine was an amicable parting from JTF, and I can say in all seriousness that my year and a half there changed me for the better. It broadened my mind and made me think of things that had not occurred to me before.

Driving home from work one day, I listened to a news story on the radio, and it occurred to me that after a year of living in Philadelphia, I had had maybe two political conversations, period. I think it’s so easy for pundits and others who live in a bubble where conversation is driven by news and current events to forget that many, probably most, Americans don’t live their lives according to the daily news cycle. I know, I know, this is obvious, but it’s so obvious many of us commentators don’t notice it. Leaving the New York-Washington bubble for Dallas showed me how cut off the people who run our country and media are from the lives of most Americans. Leaving the newspaper bubble for a job that specifically ruled out writing about politics and current affairs compelled me to see the world in a different way — in a way that I think is more like the way most Americans see it, to be honest.

Don’t get me wrong — there’s nothing wrong with thinking and writing about politics. I wouldn’t be working for a magazine called The American Conservative if I thought there were. What I’ve learned is that politics has far too great a place in the minds of many of us who labor in these particular vineyards. What concerns me most, as a conservative and as, well, a person, is the meaning of life, and how people find purpose, order, and happiness. It has seemed to me for some time — and readers of my book “Crunchy Cons” (now out in Kindle and Nook forms, if you like) and my old Crunchy Con blog know this — that American conservative thought and activism is far too caught up in politics. We need a less ideological, more holistic and philosophical conservatism — and I think TAC is poised to be the flagship journal for this kind of reform conservatism. When the mag asked me to consider coming aboard, I was honored and pleased to have the opportunity. But thanks to my time at JTF, I will be writing even more about ideas that emerge from the world of science — ideas and research that have a lot to do with faith, family, and other things that traditional conservatives care about, or should care about.

One of the editorial tasks I’ve set for myself at TAC is to seek out more pieces about culture for the magazine. And I mean “culture” in a broad sense, including religion, art, architecture, food, morals, places, ideas — basically, the meaningful aspects of life that aren’t entailed by the usual areas of focus of opinion magazines, namely politics, economics, law, and foreign policy. I had come to believe before my year-long sabbatical that culture is more important than politics, as my old readers will remember, but this time away has convinced me of that even more.

One more thing: so many of you were incredibly kind to me and my family back when my old blog was up, offering to pray for my sister Ruthie, who was diagnosed in the beginning of 2010 with lung cancer. I am pleased to be able to tell you that she has beaten the odds, and is still with us. She is so overwhelmingly grateful for your prayers (as are we all), and she still needs them, as she has been unable to keep weight on lately.

There’s lots more to say about so many things. So let’s get to it. Thanks for reading, welcome back, and let’s get to it. Oh, a last thing about our comments policy. Old readers from my Beliefnet blog will recall that I run a pretty tight ship on the comments policy. I welcome dissent, even vigorous dissent, but it has to be civil. I don’t tolerate abuse toward myself or anybody else. I don’t have the patience for it, and I strongly believe I owe it to my readers to offer them a comments section that is a pleasure to read and to participate in. My comboxes are troll-free zones, and I don’t apologize for it. Because I’m the Mean Daddy, that’s why. You have to wait for me to approve the comment before it appears. I’m going to watch the site diligently to get your stuff up as fast as I can, but sometimes there will be a significant delay. Sorry about that, but it’s what we gotta do.

Dear in Christ Benedict, it is great to have you back. Your book Crunchy Cons and your former blogs were great influences in my own life, and it was one of very few books I reviewed on my own website.

I am also a fellow Orthodox Christian, and I found so much of your online conversion narrative just so honest and inspiring that I wanted to thank you personally for writing it. I want to send you my condolences over the passing into eternal life of your diocese’s eminent hierarch, Archbishop Dmitri. May God grant him remission of sins, an imperishable crown, and a place among the righteous.

Welcome back to us, Rod. I have missed your voice desperately. I was so pleased to see your piece on 9/11 in Sunday’s Dallas Morning News and held my breath in hopes that more would be forthcoming. May God bless you and your family, and let the games begin!

Halleluiah! Would love to catch up with you, but I can’t type as fast as I can speak. Please, please look us up when you are in town. I want to fill you in on what’s happening in your old corner of the world.
Peace out!
Cordial Connie

Rod, as someone who was deeply impacted by your book Crunchy Cons- it’s great to hear that your conversation here will be going beyond just politics. While Crunchy Cons dealt alot with politics it seemed to me you were discussing something deeper- something more urgent and spiritual- a cultural shift that you had stumbled upon- a view from the wall- a peak at the horizon. Many blessings – I look forward to you sharing your thoughts again. -shalom! JF

I thought perhaps you had stolen the line from Dave Chappelle (I’m rich biaatch!) and had totally retired.

I’m going to miss the last iteration, though I came in for the former blog.

Can’t remember where the link came from, but I enjoyed your writing and even ended up reading Charles Taylor’s “The Secular Age” (not super enjoyable, having read so much of the material in college, but a great graduation gift nonetheless). Good to see you back and we’ll fight over Pat’s vs. Geno’s one of these days.

Welcome back, Rod! You’ve been missed, and I know this new blog is going to be terrific.

I tend to agree that we need a new iteration of conservatism that goes beyond party politics. There’s been lots of talk lately in the Catholic blogosphere about the need for Catholics in America to move beyond tribalism, beyond the knee-jerk reaction to certain topics ranging from liturgical to political to theological and beyond which, instead of engaging these topics individually and thoughtfully, sorts them all into boxes labeled “Us” and “Them.” That these conversations are happening is a positive trend, I think–and the same sort of conversations need to happen in the secular world. As a writer I admire once said (and I’m paraphrasing, of course) it should be possible to wear Birkenstocks and buy organic produce and oppose the death penalty and be pro-life and homeschool and own a gun and raise chickens, without having any of those choices put one beyond the pale among one group or other of one’s associates.

Rod, it’s good to have you back! I’ve missed your blogging this past year. Now I can once again get my daily dose of Dreher. 🙂

Yeah, a more thoughtful, more grounded, more deeply rooted conservatism… I’ve been feeling a need for the same for some time now. I can’t help but think that something in mainstream, politically-fixated conservatism has gone off the track. All the kneejerk reacting, the cheerleading, yoo-rah-rah, and mindless demonization of one’s opponents. Politics, on either side of the spectrum, has become a way of fiddling while Rome burns.

Lately I’ve been searching around hither and yon right-of-center, paleoconservatism, right-wing anarchism, you name it: am not entirely taken with what I find there, either, but it’s clear to me that something has gone haywire in much of the erstwhile mainstream. Or at least, that’s how it seems to me, here in my big old rambling house on a gravel road far out into deep rural America.

I’ve been waiting for you to reappear. I didn’t like the odd sense that you were being “muzzled”–though all was amicable, as you say, at the T.F. and though it was no doubt beneficial for you to think quietly for a while–I’ve come to view you as one of the voices of my generation and I missed the conversation.

I’ve been reading “The Death of the Liberal Class” by Chris Hedges. Not quite sure what to make of it entirely, yet, but I agree with his idea that Left vs. Right is a false dichotomy which merely distracts us and prevents us from seeing clearly what is happening to our world these days was. That’s why your offer to be less ideological and more holistic and philosophical is a sweet relief.

So glad too–to hear of your sister’s progress. Blessings to your family and to you on this new venture.

Welcome back Rod! I’ve much enjoyed your writing ever since I read the original Crunchy Con essay in National Review. As a lapsed Roman Catholic, your book inspired me to rediscover the church and I’ve since found a true home in a Byzantine-rite parish.

I agree about the need for more cultural issues discussed in conservative media. I still read National Review, but usually skip the political, economic and policy articles, and go right to Mark Steyn, Theodore Darymple, John Derbyshire, and Jim Manzi. Perhaps I should subscribe to TAC as well now.

At first I was disappointed you had chosen a venue called “The American Conservative.” Rod Dreher is better than that, I thought. Yes, the Con in Crunchy Con does stand for conservative, but most of the faux “conservatives” who dominate the news cycle don’t know how to “conserve” much of anything. Rod Dreher was a “None of the Above” conservative, with a highly functional mind. Well, maybe you can bring some of that to The American Conservative. Or maybe, unlike, e.g., National Review, this is a venue that already has some thoughtful capacity. Otherwise, why would Rod Dreher be working for them?

Your absence has given me the opportunity to become better acquainted with Erin Manning, hop over to Acts of the Apostasy, and to slide in and out of the mysterious H.M. Stuart’s faux-Crunchy-Cons menagerie titled “Alexandria.” It will be good to read you in living color again, and to have your verbal dexterity to test my wits against.

I’m glad to hear about your sister is well; continued prayers for her.

And my condolences on the death of Archbishop Dmitri. Reading of it I recalled your recounting of your initial meeting with him at his house at St. Seraphim’s. In his poverty, his charity and his faith, he seemed to be a true man of God.

Let joy be unrestrained! Let there be dancing in the streets, drinking in the saloons and, well, we won’t go into how folks can celebrate in the bedroom.

It has been a dreadfully boring year without my daily dose of Dreherist Heterodoxy (now you know I’ve been waiting to get back at you for the Cosimanian Orthodox line) to get my brain running and my blood pressure rising.

You’ve been missed. Great to have you back. I agree wholeheartedly with your desire for more cultural criticism from your perspective. I always notice, after watching a great film or show, that aside from the boring and mostly blandly liberal critics at newspapers, or the blogger movie fanboys, there is very rarely anybody reviewing the meaning of these works, and almost nobody doing it with any depth or insight. Ditto for pop music, books, exhibits, art, etc. All this blogging out there, and almost too many people writing about politics and not about the cultural items that give our lives meaning and time to think.

I was a big fan of the beliefnet blog, and look forward to you being back into my work procrastination rotation.

Yeh! Hurrah! You were missed. In fact it seems a lot longer than a year that I’ve missed your writing….really, only a year? I am also so glad to hear that Ruthie is still with us and I assure you we are still praying! I am so glad to have a daily blog I can relate to again…not too wordy, not too religious, not too political but rather a delicate weave of balance and thought. Welcome back to us…the internet faceless friends connected through the tenuous web of articulation. I am so so so glad you are back!

Dear Rod: How great less than a year after seeing you at Met. Hilarion’s concert to receive this great news, that you are back in your element! All the best to your sweet family…I will figure out how to sign up for email updates…Hope to see you in Dallas or PA very soon…